Just how does Shula get these performances, year in and year out? How does he get youngsters to play error-free football? Is there a Don Shula secret in striving for perfection?
''It's the way I grew up,'' he says. ''I've always been neat and clean.'' He isn't kidding. You make a mistake on the Dolphins and you won't repeat it.
It is hot here even now, the temperature in the mid-80's, the humidity passing 70 percent. Shula's 1940's boy-next-door haircut is unwilted. The press on his open-necked pullover is permanent.
It is hotter in the summer, unbearable under the two-a-day's. ''It isn't unusual for him to put the club through a walk-through at 7:30 at night in the summer if he didn't like the way the two-a-day's went,'' says one member of the front office.
Always, he is neat and clean. If you do something sloppy in practice, you - and everyone else - knows it. Sloppiness, for example, is committing a holding penalty - even in practice.
''We don't think it's a joke,'' says Shula. ''We stop practice.'' Shula claims he does not want his players committing penalties even in a loosely officiated game, when it is apparent that players can get away with things.
''There are times teams gamble because there are no calls,'' he concedes. But he adds, ''You make a decision on what football should be.''
For Shula, it means a purity of line. Some surfers roam the world looking for a perfect wave. For Shula, it is a perfect 60 minutes. ''When I played, I couldn't stand for teammates to make mistakes,'' he recalls. ''I'd get after them if they made errors. They called me Captain Redneck. I believe that as long as you're doing something, you do it right.''
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